Dead or Undead?

[Andy]

So a real zombie apocolypse situation has happened, the world has crumbled.. goverments failed, everything wiped out. everything you knew has gone and a new world inhabitated by the undead has replaced it.

Except you have somehow made it this far, you've even managed to rescue a small group of loved ones and friends and have made a go of it in this new world.

Then one day something happens, someone makes a mistake and allows a couple of Z's into your compound/base/mall and in the confusion and the fight that ensures, trying to save your loved ones, you have taken a bite.

You know whats coming, your biten. your infected.. there's only 2 ways out of this, now the interesting question (i think) is would you have someone kill you so that you dont come back, or would you rather let zombification take its course and see how the other half live (or dont live...)?

[Legion2213]

I try to go out Roger style...nobody really wants to go all "suicide", it's unatural to end ones life, no matter how desperate, but do I want somebody trustworthy to de-brain me as soon as I breath my last.

[Wyldwraith]

Hmm,
Didn't we do a thread like this recently? Will give the answer I believe I gave there. I cannot imagine a more horrible fate than the possibility of my consciousness and (if you believe in such things, I do) my immortal soul trapped inside a rotting carcass I have no control over, that's driven to kill and consume (not necessarily in that order) the very people I've spent all those years protecting and helping to survive.

So yea, I vote for a quick bullet to the brain...after I've had time to say my goodbyes and then maybe (if the situation and supplies allow) get incredibly intoxicated before my executioner does his/her work.

Personally, I find it all but impossible to conceive of any reason or possible motivation that could convince someone to choose rotting undeath over a mercifully quick death.

In fact, I'm rather curious as to whether anyone can put forward a good reason to embrace zombie-style undeath. (Modern conceptions of vampirism are another thing entirely. Would happily sign up for immortality, agelessness, perfect health, rapid regeneration of all but the most extreme of traumas and various other physical perks in exchange for adopting an exclusively liquid diet and nocturnal lifestyle.)

Still, if you worked that hard to survive the fall of civilization and attacks by relentless ghouls for who knows how long, what could persuade you to become a threat to the uninfected people you've been sharing your life with?

Very interested.

[bd2999]

Strangely have had this talk with people before. It just depends. You last as long as you can to try and make a difference for everyone but if you start slowing them down I think you have to ask to be put down. At best you wait a bit so you are in that gap phase between life and living death so it is easier on both of you, but I would rather be put down outright if that was the only choice. To big of a chance of hurting someone you care about.

[bassman]

Depending on what family survivors i'm with, I would most likely have someone to keep guard and take care of me AFTER turning. Who knows....maybe I won't come back. Most likely I would and if I did I have the same opinion as Cholo. "I wanna see how the other half lives"

[Trin]

Hmm,
Didn't we do a thread like this recently? Will give the answer I believe I gave there. I cannot imagine a more horrible fate than the possibility of my consciousness and (if you believe in such things, I do) my immortal soul trapped inside a rotting carcass I have no control over, that's driven to kill and consume (not necessarily in that order) the very people I've spent all those years protecting and helping to survive.
That presumes that being dead is better. What if Hell is real and you are condemned to live eternity in torment? When you could spend eternity chillaxin in the deep end of your rich idiot nephew's pool.

[Danny]

eh, either way im dead so im not bothered.:lol:

[Andy]

Ive always wondered if you would be concious so to speak or even aware of whats happening around you as a Z, even if you had no control over it.

If we beleive that parts of the brain are being motivated or are still functioning, including vague memories then i think its not a big leap of imagination to think that you could still be concious on some level. Kind of like being in a coma but walking around.

[AcesandEights]

Ive always wondered if you would be concious so to speak or even aware of whats happening around you as a Z, even if you had no control over it.

If we beleive that parts of the brain are being motivated or are still functioning, including vague memories then i think its not a big leap of imagination to think that you could still be concious on some level. Kind of like being in a coma but walking around.

My thoughts on the matter, as taken from the previously mentioned, similar thread from last month (http://forum.homepageofthedead.com/showthread.php?t=16227):

No thank you!

I've always been afraid of suffering any sort of mentally impairing injury (stroke, brain trauma, aneurysm etc.) and the condition of a shambling corpse seems too close, especially since I'm not convinced that there is such a thing as a soul, I'd just rather the spark go out of my form entirely when I die. If there is a soul, an animus that persists after we die, there's a chance that being a zombie might trap it inside the body in some way...so either way it just seems wrong, unnatural and hellish to me.

And, most importantly, why would I want my animate body wandering around causing problems for fellow people, putting them in danger and possibly eating them? I'm not that much of an asshole...who here, in all reality, is?

[bassman]

I would think you would have a small memory of yourself and your surroundings for the first few seconds, but then you just turn to instinct. Kinda how Shaun's mom recognizes him when she first comes back, but then loses it and goes in to kill. I guess you could say the same about Roger.

But on the other hand....Bub knew the whole gun and military salute. Did he realize that he was once a soldier or was it something he didn't really understand?

[darth los]

I would think you would have a small memory of yourself and your surroundings for the first few seconds, but then you just turn to instinct. Kinda how Shaun's mom recognizes him when she first comes back, but then loses it and goes in to kill. I guess you could say the same about Roger.

But on the other hand....Bub knew the whole gun and military salute. Did he realize that he was once a soldier or was it something he didn't really understand?


You know, I always wondered about that as different things are implied about bub's learning capabilities.

The salute is pretty straight forward that Logan didn't show him that as it seemed to catch him by suprise as he said, "apparently he's former military".

You would think that logan would be taking creditfor teaching bub as much as he could, not the other way around.

The other things, like the walkman and razor, imo, were taught to bub. He makes the point of saying "he remembers them from before." And then repeats the latter half while laughing, apparently at it's double meaning.

He remembers them from his former life and he remembers them from his previous lessons with logan.

Hey, it's a theory. :o

:cool:

:cool:

[SRP76]

I'd rather die. The zombies are the enemy.

I'd go out suicide bomber style. May as well take as many ghouls as I can out with me, since if the living are ever going to retake the planet, they have to wipe out the dead. Give them a little head start.

[Publius]

The salute is pretty straight forward that Logan didn't show him that as it seemed to catch him by suprise as he said, "apparently he's former military".

I'd say that conclusion is suspect, considering that Bub was at a military installation, was not kept in isolation, and could plausibly have seen salutes rendered before. In which case his own salute is more easily explained by a talent for mimicry than memories of past life. See the "Clever Hans Effect," where some researchers were fooled into thinking that a horse (Clever Hans) could count and solve simple arithmetic problems via hoof-taps. In reality, he was just picking up on subtle nonverbal signals the researchers were sending when he reached the right number of taps. Studies like this showed the importance of double-blind testing, which certainly wasn't used in Bub's case.

[EvilNed]

Didn't really see that many (if any) salutes going down in Day of the Dead, tho.

[Publius]

True. But didn't see anyone taking a crap either, and that doesn't mean THAT never happened. ;)

[FoodFight]

I'd say that conclusion is suspect, considering that Bub was at a military installation, was not kept in isolation, and could plausibly have seen salutes rendered before.

I must disagree. While it was a military installation, it was primarily indoors, where saluting is limited to reporting to an officer, reporting for pay, etc. IOW, fewer occasions to render the salute. Coupled with the fact that they were under arms, any salutes he may have witnessed would be modified (i.e. the rifle sling would be grasped prior to rendering honors), an action which he didn't include. Since he wasn't throwing salutes at every private who crossed his path, and only saluted the one remaining commissioned officer in attendance, I seriously doubt that it was mimicry.

Lastly, his familiarity with the service automatic. Both loading procedure an the practical application once it was loaded. Either he was an amazingly quick study (with a mildewed brain to boot), or he had done that sort of thing before.

[Wyldwraith]

All right then,
The arguments made that support some sort of pro-potential zombie intelligence theory can be applied equally as still more reasons not to want to come back.

IE: The only thing worse than having your consciousness paralyzed/forced to watch as hideous instincts drive your decaying body to commit atrocity after atrocity is if your consciousness is even more intact than we've been lead to believe in zombies.

Just stop and do your best to imagine reaching the horrified realization that you're undead, you will continue to be undead unless/until someone destroys your brain, and that you're clearly capable of understanding the cannibalistic acts your body is performing, and appreciating the pain and terror you're inflicting on still-living humans.

Trin's comment about "What if Undead is better?" in reference to the fact you might be headed to Hell when you die I answer with:

"How is what I just described NOT eternal torment?" Yes, it MIGHT end when your decaying body finally surrenders at long last to rot and becomes non-mobile by falling apart, but what if your awareness of undeath/the awful hunger for warm human flesh lasts even longer. You're a partially mummified head, lying in a filth-covered alley, and this could go on for an indefinite period of time. After all, if the zombie body lasted far longer than the rules of normal corpse decay there's nothing to say that the undead brain in its bone casing couldn't last for a couple hundred years.

So your immobile, your eyes have rotted away leaving you blind, the inner ear structures rotted away, leaving you deaf, no other senses to speak of..so you're a vague foggy awareness, trapped in the silent darkness for TWO HUNDRED YEARS.

Anyone ever have to go to Alternative Education when they misbehaved in school? When you go A.E, you were sent off at the start of the school day to a separate room containing a teacher/babysitter and other students sentenced to A.E. You're forbidden to speak unless it's vitally necessary, and then only to the teacher, and you have literally endless piles of meaningless, non-graded makework-classwork of the most tedious kinds thrust at you. 2 scheduled bathroom breaks all day, lunch in the A.E classroom, AFTER the entire A.E Class is marched single-file through the cafeteria to collect their school lunches and back to the room.

Make a sound, another day of A.E (during which you get zeros for your work in all your normal classes), stop doing the busywork long enough to even massage a cramp out of your writing hand, another day of A.E etc etc.

Now, that's NOTHING compared to the undeath situation, but I saw tough 18yr olds break down and cry in A.E. I went once, and anytime I got in trouble after that I made sure I compounded whatever offense I'd committed sufficiently to be suspended out of school.

Still, same thing goes for 23hr/day lockdown in prison. It breaks quite a few people, yet ultimately would still be trivial when compared to being the rotted, blind, deaf zombie head in the alley for who knows how long.

Just some intended food for thought.

[Trin]

True. And all that might be less than an appetizer compared to the torment of your afterlife.

The point is - you don't know. You are comparing against an unknown. Contrive the worst possible thing you can think of and it might be worse.

To the previous points, I don't believe Bub's salute was mimicry. Even if he'd seen a salute in the base it was undoubtedly not a crisp professional salute like he gave.

[AcesandEights]

To the previous points, I don't believe Bub's salute was mimicry. Even if he'd seen a salute in the base it was undoubtedly not a crisp professional salute like he gave.

I agree. There certainly seemed, to me anyway, to be underlying emotion behind the salute, which made it seem more than just the mimicry of a perfunctory action.

[SymphonicX]

good post - i'd like to see how the other half live but if the resulting infection made me feel really, really bad - which I suspect it would - then I'd probably get myself offed so I don't have to go through the change process.

If it was a case of just dropping dead after a few days with a slight fever, then screw it let me walk around for a bit...

[Trin]

Did anyone ever consider that maybe the living dead are seeking humans in hopes of being shot in the head?

[darth los]

Did anyone ever consider that maybe the living dead are seeking humans in hopes of being shot in the head?

Very interesting. That would explain why they only go after humans, the only thing capable of squeezing a trigger and ending their purgetory.

Anyone else have a thought on that? (Now THERE'S a rhetorical question :lol:)

:cool:

[bassman]

If they were seeking humans for a means to an end, why would they then eat the very same humans, thus preventing the shot to the head?

[Wyldwraith]

Interesting theory Trin,
Maybe some of the odd things they do (like the characteristic moan when they're nearing live humans) might be the best they can do by way of warning the humans. If their body is 95% under the control of their rampaging instincts, that would make even more sense.

Now that you've got me thinking along these lines it makes me wonder. Their supposed relentlessness, endlessly pounding on barricades or beating their head against reinforced glass with humans on the other side could be their best effort to speed up the process of their personal extinction.

Definitely one of the more novel theories I've read here. Good one :)

[Trin]

If they were seeking humans for a means to an end, why would they then eat the very same humans, thus preventing the shot to the head?
How many times have I walked by food and just instinctively eaten it, no matter how bad it is for me? They are us after all, just operating at a less perfect level.